Mexico City, Mexico- Earthquake of 1985

    On September 19, 1985 at 7:18 Mexico was hit with a large earthquake of a magnitude-8.0. The earthquake's epicenter occurred in the state of Michoacán, Mexico and was 200 miles from Mexico City. (Britannica 2022) It was estimated to have lasted 3-4 minutes long. 

    The earthquake was one that was devastating to the country due to the fact that they were not prepared for it. The quake killed more than, "10,000 and left another 30,000 others injured and as many as a quarter of a million people homeless." ( History 2009). The earthquake did occur some 200 miles from Mexico city but it was recorded that houses did get knocked down in the areas closer to the epicenter the majority of the damage was seen in Mexico city. The reason that Mexico city was hurt some much in the earthquake was because of the ground that it sits on. Mexico city is surrounded by volcanoes and mountains and long ago the city was "...covered by lakes in ancient times. As the aquifer under the city has slowly drained, it has been discovered that the city sits atop a combination of dirt and sand that is much less stable than bedrock and can be quite volatile during an earthquake." (NIST 2017) The ground type under the city amplified the quakes that had come from the main epicenter causing the continued shaking that devastated the city. The amount of buildings that were damaged in the quake turned out to be "...3,000 buildings in Mexico City were demolished and another 100,000 suffered serious damage"(NIST 2017). 

    The lesson of the the 1985 Mexico earthquake was how little prepared the city was for something like that. They had no early warning systems in place back then an had no idea about the type of ground they were living on. The city also learned about how little they had up to code with building regulations in the city because of how much it was growing back then, and because of this after the earthquake, "Public transportation halted, water pipes burst and public health facilities – few of which were built to code – crumbled" ( Guardian 2015).  After this fact
the people that were living in the area that had little to no help after the earthquake wanted change in the government because of what they were doing and not helping the working class people who had lost there homes. People became mad and was "...criticizing the government's decision to spend international aid on the reconstruction of schools and hospitals instead of housing" (Orme 1986). The main culprit of the main damage that was recorded in the earthquake was due to the ground that the city was built on and how it acted in the quake. The government learned after the quake that they did not truly understand the ground they were built on and had learned that they need to go deeper with future builds and reach the bed rock to build on.

https://www.britannica.com/video/179495/more-office-building-earthquake-Mexico-City-Torre-2009

This video talks about the earth quake and shows footage of how the ground would have acted under the city. The video shows the design of a new build that incorporated shock absorbing technology to mitigate the tall building form collapsing in future earthquakes. 

Works cited

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopedia. "Mexico City earthquake of 1985". Encyclopedia Britannica,             12 Sep. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/event/Mexico-City-earthquake-of-1985. Accessed 12             September 2022.

“Earthquake Mexico 1985.” NIST, 6 Jan. 2017, https://www.nist.gov/el/earthquake-mexico-1985.

History.com Editors. “1985 Mexico City Earthquake.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 9 Nov. 2009, https://www.history.com/topics/natural-disasters-and-environment/1985-mexico-city-earthquake.

“The Mexico City Earthquake, 30 Years on: Have Its Lessons Been Forgotten?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 18 Sept. 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/sep/18/mexico-city-earthquake-30-years-lessons.

Orme, William A. “Thousands Still Homeless 1 Year After Mexico Quake.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 20 Sept. 1986, https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/mexico/stories/860920.htm.